The cats nestle close to their kittens,
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You are cozy and warm in your bed, my dear.
Please go the fuck to sleep.

The windows are dark in the town, child.
The whales huddle down in the deep.
I'll read you one very last book if you swear
You'll go the fuck to sleep.

The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest
And the creatures who crawl, run and creep.
I know you're not thirsty. That's bullshit. Stop lying.
Lie the fuck down, my darling, and sleep.

The wind whispers soft through the grass, hon.
The field mice, they make not a peep.
It's been thirty-eight minutes already.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck? Go to sleep.

All the kids from day care are in dreamland.
The froggie has made his last leap.
Hell no, you can't go to the bathroom.
You know where you can go? The fuck to sleep.

The owls fly forth from the treetops.
Through the air they soar and they sweep.
The hot, crimson rage fills my heart, love.
For real: shut the fuck up and sleep.

The cubs and the lions are snoring (snore)
Wrapped in a big, snuggly heap.
How come you can do all this other great shit
But you can't lie the fuck down and sleep?

The seeds slumber beneath the earth now,
And the crops that the farmers will reap.
No more questions, this interview's over.
I've got two words for you, kid: fucking sleep.

The tiger reclines in the Siberian jungle.
The sparrow has silenced her cheep.
Fuck your stuffed bear, I'm not getting you shit.
Close your eyes, cut the crap: sleep.

Flowers doze low in the meadows
And high on the mountains so steep.
My life is a failure, I'm a shitty-ass parent.
Stop fucking with me please, and sleep.

The giant pangolins of Madagascar are snoozing
As I lie here and openly weep.
Sure, fine, whatever, I'll bring you some milk.
Who the fuck cares? You're not gonna sleep.

This room is all I can remember.
The furniture crappy and cheap.
You win! You escape, you run down the hall
As I nod the fuck off and sleep.

Bleary and dazed I awaken
To find your eyes shut, so I keep
My fingers crossed tight, as I tip-toe away
And pray that you're fucking asleep.

We're finally watching our movie.
Popcorn's in the microwave: "beep!"
Oh shit, goddamn it, you've got to be kidding.
Go the fuck back to sleep!

Adam Mansbach

Adam Mansbach’s new novel, Rage is Back (Viking) has been named an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month for January 2013, and a Barnes & Noble Best Book. The Washington Post says “Mansbach has clearly had a play date with Michael Chabon and Junot Diaz, and his fresh, witty novel is one that hip readers will relish,” and adds that “There’s no resisting [narrator] Dondi, ‘a nerd with swagger,’ as he riffs on everything from Madison Avenue to yuppies' racial anxiety.” The San Francisco Chronicle writes that “Rage Is Back does for graffiti what Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay did for comic books. Dondi mashes up disparate linguistic registers with an effortlessness that brings to mind Junot Díaz’s perennial narrator, Junior. The ideal interpreter for this journey, he is equally comfortable holding forth on the history of graffiti style, explaining the “tripartite drug economy” of Fort Greene or (like many a smart high school student), bringing it all back to Homer, Plato and The Great Gatsby. …but beneath all the weed and spray paint, it’s a warmhearted story about a son searching for his father and for himself, a trip through the past and present of an American art form that fits surprisingly well within the confines of the novel.”

Mansbach’s previous book, Go the Fck to Sleep is a #1 New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked-about books of the decade. A viral sensation that shot to #1 on Amazon.com months before the book was even available, it has been published in forty languages, and is forthcoming as a feature film from Fox 2000. Mansbach also wrote"Wake the Fck Up,“ a pro-Obama video starring Samuel L. Jackson that has been described by many as the greatest political ad of all time. Released online on September 27, 2012, it received 5 million views in its first week.

Mansbach’s 2008 novel, The End of the Jews, won the California Book Award and was long-listed for the IMPAC-Dublin Prize. His previous novel, Angry Black White Boy, or The Miscegenation of Macon Detornay, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005; it is taught at more than eighty universities and has been adapted into a prize-winning stage play. He is also the author of the novel Shackling Water, the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights, the graphic novel Nature of the Beast (co-written with Douglas Mcgowan).